


Purgatory Awaiting

by huylair



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Madison and Misty are still in hell, Post-Canon, Purgatory, Slow Burn, Somewhat Problematic, Soul Bond, but also not exactly, for now at least, kinda soul mates au?, wow I'm really selling this here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-09-12 08:26:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16869556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huylair/pseuds/huylair
Summary: Follows Canon.After destroying Michael, Mallory returns to Miss Robichaux's, her dream of normalcy seemingly within reach. Yet, if she had really killed him why does she feel like he's still there, watching her. Somehow he needs to repent for his sins, and it seems that he will do it through her.An extension of canon in which Michael doesn't truly die and is instead is trapped bound to Mallory's soul.





	1. what should have been the end of it

**Author's Note:**

> Just a few clarifications before I start. 
> 
> In this 'canon' version.  
> 1\. Misty is never brought back by Mallory, but don't worry this probably isn't the last you'll see of that cutie  
> 2\. Timothy and Emily never give birth to Michael 2.0, because why did that even happen in the first place? Let's just pretend that they do get married and have NORMAL children together though (because they were adorable.)
> 
> With all that said, enjoy!

She feels nothing as she rams the car into his body. Nothing as she looks back to see the broken body on the road, twisted and contorted like a freak.

This isn’t like her and she knows it. The girl who would weep at the sight of butterflies with their wings pulled out was long dead; she had died after those 18 long months of hell in the calm chaos of the outpost. He had killed her. That twisted devil on the road had done this to her, even if this version of him didn’t know it himself.

She doesn’t even flinch and the sound of his childlike cries, the tears rolling down his pale face - she just reverses the SUV back over the half-dead body, once again feeling a distinct numbness at the sound of the bones crunching and his loud wails. 

She switches the gears one final time, repeating the pattern of the last two times, and it is only then that she lets herself breathe. A little shudder escapes her lips as she looks back one final time. A woman rushes onto the road, a look of utter shock and contempt reflected in her face as she cradles the boy, his cries growing too quiet for Mallory to hear, but just before she drives away she sees the woman let his fragile body drop to the ground, his head colliding with the hard tarmac without the support of her hands. He has been abandoned. 

Mallory puts the full weight of her foot on the accelerator pedal, not lingering one more moment to look back. She has done enough looking back in the last two years to fill a lifetime, with all of her time at Outpost 3 being spent lusting after a sense of the constancy and safety of list before the bombs.

Suddenly she feels a wave of nausea overtake the numbness in her body, almost causing her to take her foot off of the pedal with a lightheaded feeling and a gush of cold air like nothing she has ever felt before, but as soon as it comes it passes. 

Michael was a pathetic man, and now he had died as a pathetic boy with a pathetic death. 

Mallory thought that that was almost prophetic.

/// \\\\\

The moment the door opens to Miss Robichaux’s academy she feels a sense of nostalgia for a life that she needs to keep reminding herself never happened, not after her successful attempt at Tempus Infinitum, yet the moment she wraps her shaking arms around a flustered Cordelia’s neck she knows she’s home. 

Home. How long has it been since she’s had one of those?

Cordelia shows her around the establishment and she can barely hide her excitement. Mallory is filled with the blooming anticipation of building a new life in the light of peace and compassion together with her posse - her coven - even if they don’t know her yet. 

She never thought that Zoe and Queenie could ever look as beautiful as they did at the moment that she saw their faces again, shining with a form of divine light; perhaps she has just spent so much time in the tainted light of the candles in the Outpost that she had forgotten the God-given power of sunlight. She barely contains the urge to pounce on them. She had thought that they were gone forever.

“Girl, you must be so tired, your eyes are practically brimming with tears,” Queenie says. “Has Cordelia shown you to a room yet?” 

She shakes her head, blinking a stray relieved tear out of her eyes, and turns to look at Cordelia, who shrugs and directs Queenie to help Mallory settle in with her motherly tone. God, she had missed that tone.

Queenie shows her up the stairs and shows her around the vacant rooms, yet Mallory has to keep reminding herself to pretend to be curious and naive to the workings of Robichaux’s, pretending to inspect and gush over the beauty of each pristine white bedchamber, yet she knows that there’s only one room that she wants. Her old room. 

When they reach the room that Mallory knows so well she doesn’t even need to think twice before exclaiming “This is the one I want” in a soft, breathy voice. Her soul seems to have drawn her to this room with extreme power.

“Are you sure? There are still a couple of others if you want to see.” Queenie says.

Mallory turns to look at the creamy bedsheets and the white wardrobe, placed exactly where she remembered it, the 3 fluffy pillows in the same arrangement that they always were before him. 

“I’m sure.” 

Queenie gives her a small smile and takes her hand. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says, “our numbers are more than they were but us witches are an endangered species. Welcome to the family.” 

Mallory wants to cry, but she keeps her tears locked inside as she stares into Queenie’s kind eyes. Queenie lets her hand go and walks to the doorframe, the door still hanging open, before turning around one last time to look at her. 

“Just so you know, dinner’s at--”

“--Half six,” Mallory whispers, taking the other girl by surprise. 

“How did you know that?” 

Mallory catches herself for a moment. She needs to act normal, the coven can never know what happened to her or that she had traveled back in time. She wanted to leave that old timeline behind, both for the sake of the girls and for her own fickle sanity.

Mallory smiled sheepishly. “I guessed, it seems I have a reliable gut-feeling.”

Queenie laughs. 

“A little spooky, admittedly, but I like you girl. Settle down, you’ve got a hell of a time here coming for you.” 

It isn’t until Queenie firmly closes her door behind her that Mallory lets a biblical flood of tears escape her, little hiccups of both the relief and sadness that she has built inside her release. 

It hits her then that it has been so long since she truly cried, allowing herself to feel her entire body shaking to achieve that numb but blissful sense of catharsis that she had been craving those long months.

She collapses onto the sheets, feeling them envelop her small body and feeling the warm hug of familiarity with stray tears falling down her face in the sheer relief of it all.

She doesn’t know how long she lays cuddled by her duvet before she opens her eyes again, doe-eyed and delirious, releasing a little giggle to herself. Lifting herself off of the bed she hangs her legs off of the side, her legs not quite long enough to reach the floor. 

Re-stabilising herself she pushes herself onto her feet, yet the mood in the room has shifted, a distinct rush of cool air rushing over her body, causing her to shiver slightly as she longs for the warmth of the duvet again, yet it’s a small thud of an object hitting the floor that diverts her attention from her happy musings.

She turns her gaze to the floor, her breath catching in her throat as she sees a freshly picked rose on the floor, red and luscious.

That rose hadn’t been there before. 

She picks it up with two tentative fingers, cursing as she pricks her thumb on one of the pronounced thorns, a small prick of blood forming.

“Shit,” she curses at the light pain, a sickly sweet smell being let off by the rose. The rose is still wet with evening dew, as though it had just been picked from outside, and with her thumb still in her mouth she walks towards the window-sill, yet she sees no rose bushes as she stares at the view of the gardens. 

The sweetness of the rose makes her feel queasy, and she places it on her desk, wondering how the hell it got there.

/// 

Dinner is a joyous affair. Solid food has never tasted so good, though she assumes that eating nothing but gelatin cubes for 18 months tends to have that effect on one’s appetite. 

She can’t help but feel uneasy at the oddity of the perfect rose she has left in her room, but she shakes it off, choosing instead to focus on the platter in front of her, alive with beef slices, potatoes, and beetroot. It takes all the powers of self-constraint within her not to scarf the whole thing down in one go, plate included. 

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a new girl here,” Zoe remarks, shoving a beetroot in her mouth, ‘it’s always nice to see new potential.” 

Mallory nods. “I don’t know what it was, but there was something calling me to this place. Let’s call in an instinct.” She lets out a small giggle. 

Cordelia gives her a subtle smile, reaching to touch her shoulder. 

“You came to the right place, life isn’t easy for a lone witch out there, never forget the danger that you’re in, but you’re safe here.” 

She remembers the sounds of the girls dying around her in this very room after he had come with the sole purpose of slaughtering them all. They weren’t safe then, yet she can’t tell them a single thing. 

But this isn’t then; that was another life, worlds away, separated by time and space.

“I know, I can feel it.” 

Zoe turns her attention away from her food and back to Mallory. “Your lessons start tomorrow, I was thinking we could maybe do an evaluation of your abilities tomorrow morning before allocating your classes? We do it with all the fresh meat.” 

Mallory nods her head in agreement. “Sure, why not?” 

Yet despite the relief Mallory feels at the sight of her girls alive and well in front of her she can’t shake the occasional shiver she feels pulsating through her body, as though someone is standing behind her in silent observation. 

She turns her head to look behind her yet she sees nothing but empty space behind her. Odd. She can’t escape the slight tinge of dread at the thought of something not being quite right. He’s dead and she knows it; everything should be better now.

She turns her attention back to her beef as some of the other girls discuss their upcoming examinations and their preparations regarding then as she desperately tries to ignore the discomfort mounting. 

Something jerks her chair out from behind her, like a gentle shove, and she nearly falls off, causing the girls to stop their chatter and look in her direction. 

“I’m so sorry,” Mallory says in a breathless whisper, “it’s been a long day of driving, I must just be a little tired, I’m almost falling off my chair.”

Cordelia nods in sympathy. “Of course dear, you must be exhausted, if you’d like to go back to your room that’s fine with us.” The other girls at the table all give small smiles at her supposed clumsiness. 

“I’d like that. I know it sounds crazy but I might just crash now, I’ve been awake since God knows when.” 

She delicately pushing her chair in as she gets up, taking one last bite of potato to appease her rumbling stomach before retiring from the room.

“I’ll see you all tomorrow.” 

“Of course, your evaluation is around 9, hopefully, that gives your body time to recover.” 

Giving one last final smile directed at Cordelia she leaves, climbing up the staircase to her room, once again falling onto her bed, before the came sickly smell reaches her nose.

Sitting on her table is an entire vase filled with roses, red as blood in color with their thorns picked out of the stems.


	2. undead face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Mallory are brought face to face with each other with disastrous consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to update! I had already written this chapter around 2 weeks ago but I found it too confusing so decided to rewrite it. I understand that some things in this chapter could be a little confusing, but I promise that all will be explained in later chapters. 
> 
> With that said, enjoy :).

Her sleep that night is fitful, the beautifully arranged flowers on her desk serving as a reminder that something just isn’t right. She doesn’t understand. 

She did everything right, eradicating him from the world and in doing so purifying it of the greatest evil she had ever seen. No one could survive what she had done to his body, at least that she was certain of. 

She reminded herself that she was only being paranoid; one of the girls must have sent the roses as a welcoming gift. Yet a dangerous voice in her head told her that there were no rose bushes in the garden, and hence the confusion deepened. 

Closing her eyes, she begs herself to forget but to no avail. 

/// 

She awakens with a jolt at the same time as the grandfather clock downstairs strikes 3 o’clock.

Hearing a rustling at the end of her bed she looks up to survey her surroundings, the sight of a black figure shrouded by the darkness of the room causing her to sit upright in her bed, her breath catching in her throat and her hands gripping the duvet from under her.

She doesn’t say anything, she simply can’t, with her body frozen in a tense state of apprehension and nothing else escaping her throat but a stifled gasp. 

The figure sighed what seemed to Mallory to be a sigh of disappointment before climbing closer to the side of the bed, the light moonlight in the room illuminating his face. 

“And here I was thinking that you were strong enough to something more than sitting here like a whimpering coward,” Michael says, a hint of a smirk in his voice.

She can’t help but scream, yet before any noise can escape her lungs his hand clamps over her mouth, rendering her voiceless and entirely helpless.

“If you promise me you won’t scream I’ll let you speak, otherwise everyone in this fucking house dies. Got it?”

She slowly nods, the gravity of the situation hitting her.

“You’re dead!” She gasps out, the onset of a panic attack gripping her body. 

His eyes darken in anger. “You took care of that, didn’t you.”

“I saw you die in front of me, you were only a child. You bled out on the road.” 

“And it hurt like a bitch,” he answers with a tinge of resentment laced in his voice.

She takes a moment to survey his appearance. He seems an unsettling mixture of the little boy she hit with her car and the grown nightmare that she knew from the outpost, his hair no longer a long as she remembers yet his body not as small as that of his childlike form.

Aside from her blinding panic, she feels a sense of confusion. The figure of Michael that she sees in front of her is neither of those that she remembers, with most of the innocence and youth in his face of his former self yet the darkness and malice of the man she remembers most clearly.

He turns to kneel on the floor by her bed, staring at her intently. 

“What are you doing here?” She says in a whisper, beginning to feel her body dissociating from her mind in a blind fury of confusion and fear.

“I was about to ask the exact same question, little witch.” He says.

She glances over to the bedside table, the roses seemingly blooming fuller than she remembered in his presence. 

“Did you send those?” She asks in an accusatory tone, pointing to the flowers.

He chuckles and his eyes light up in mirth. “My grandmother loved them. I figure that most women are simple enough to enjoy pretty things.”

“I think you forget that women are not so simple as you may think. I am more powerful than you, motherfucker, and don’t you forget it. I destroyed you once and I will destroy you again.” 

“And are you going to do that wearing your nightgown?” He jokes. “What is it with you? So ungrateful!” 

He throws his hands up in the air in an exaggerated frustrated gesture to only mock her further. 

“Besides, how are you going to destroy the dead?”

For a few nightmarish seconds, they are both silent, with the only sounds that Mallory can hear being the beating of her own heart. 

He reaches out to touch her arm, his hands all too uncomfortably hot to touch, to which she immediately retracts it into her touch. However, that’s not what worries Mallory the most. It’s the fact that he can physically interact with her, his form tangible and real, made of what she assumes is flesh and blood. He’s no spirit unable to transcend; he’s something in between. 

“Yet I’m not dead, not really, though I assume you already sensed that.” He continues. “They always said you were a smart one.” 

She stares blankly at him, unblinking and chest heaving.

“Then what the fuck are you? A demon? A poltergeist?” 

“That’s what I need you to help me discover. I’m trapped in this damn house, and so long as I’m here I will make your life a living hell, and I know you know how good I am at doing that.” 

Her feels her gaze darken with hatred and mistrust, narrowing down on his smug face.

“You think I’ll help you! I’d rather slit my own wrists.” She exclaims, finally beginning to feel her power seep back into her.

“As admittedly fun as that would be to watch I beg you to remember my earlier threats. I will destroy everyone and everything you hold dear, I’ve done it before and I’ll do it again.”

She throws the duvet off of her and runs over to the table, standing at her full height to minimize the distinct feeling that she felt with him looming over her bedside.

“What are you!” She almost screams, feeling her voice rising rather too loud for a house filled with people at three in the morning. “What do you remember and what do you want!” 

Michael walks slowly and securely to her, his hands gripping one of her slim wrists. “That’s what you’re meant to tell me, Mallory, you put me here, you’re going to get me out of this.” 

“If you think for one moment that I’ll be aiding you in any of your sick endeavors--” 

His grip on her wrist tightens and she winces. 

“I don’t think, I know, I’ll see you tomorrow and you had better have the answers!” 

She grabs the flowers and the ornate glass vase containing them and screams, “Take your damn flowers, I don’t want anything you touch! Get out! Get out of my life! Get out of everyone’s lives! Just get out!” 

She lifts the vase and throws them directly into Michael’s face, yet before they can hit their target he has disappeared, the previously tangible form dissolving into thin air as though he had never been there. The vase falls to the ground in a haunting smash and the roses and water contained spill over the pristine oak floor, seeping into the cracks within the floorboards.

“What’s wrong!” She hears Cordelia shout, at patter of feet running up the stairs and bursting through the door to her room. “Are you hurt!” 

Cordelia rushes to her sound, various other academy girls coming out of their rooms to view the commotion.

Mallory feels herself fall to her knees and begins sobbing, her body falling into a kneeling fetal position as she hugs her knees into her chest, heavy wails coming from her body.

She feels like she’s outside of her own body, looking down on a fragile little doe-like creature below and she hates the feeling of powerless that envelopes her. 

“Who was in your room, Mallory?” Cordelia asks, brushing Mallory’s hair behind her ears, but Mallory can hardly hear. 

She feels a sharp pain and her knee accidentally presses into one of the shards of glass near her, a steady stream of blood beginning to emerge from the wound. 

“Shit,” Cordelia gasps, “We need to clear this up. Girls! Back to bed! Nothing to see here!” 

As the other girls begin to walk back to their own rooms, whispers of concerned gossip exchanging between them, Cordelia begins to pick up the shards of glass surrounding the entire room, and as Mallory looks down at her own blood mixing with the roses and water she feels for the first time that evil can truly never be defeated. 

All her life she has believed in the triumph of good, in the glory of God over all others, and how in the name of all things pure the world could never be overrun. 

Now, in the undead face of her worst nightmare, she isn’t quite sure.


	3. fragmentation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mallory goes looking for answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to update! As an apology I made this an extra long chapter, and it hopefully gives a better explanation as to what happened to the characters and their situation. It's pretty exposition heavy so bear with me, but it's important, along with the fact that next chapter will be up soon since it will be much easier for me to write :).

The rest of Mallory’s morning passes in a haze.

The others decide to postpone her evaluation until a point at which her mental state is ‘put at ease’, yet all she wants to do is shout at them and warn them from the danger that they are in due to Michael’s haunting presence in the Academy. However, she knows that, for now, this is a battle she’ll have to fight on her own.

If only she knew! So many questions buzz through her head that it begins to throb under the pressure, her brief encounter with the supposedly less-than-dead antichrist doing little to provide her with much-sought-after answers.

Why was he here? What did he remember? He didn’t seem as naive and frightened as the little boy on the road, yet how could the Michael from another dimension have infiltrated the past? How much power did he retain?

She tries to stop the thoughts in her brain by listening intently to the birds outside her window but it is to no avail, her brain subconsciously choosing to return to the same questions once again. 

After a long hour sitting with her back to the bed frame and her knees huddled to her chest she decides to take a tentative step onto the floor, careful not to step on any minute shards of glass that Cordelia may have missed. Her leg stings from where she cut it earlier last night, but she chooses to ignore it. She’s survived much worse.

She tries to ignore the unwelcome feeling in her stomach that her desk almost looks empty without the blooming roses, beautifully de-thorned and ruby red, almost regretting throwing them so unceremoniously on the floor. Now all she is left with is the pristine, yet hospitalesque, whiteness of her room. 

////

After washing and putting on fresh clothes she can finally stomach breakfast, choosing a small plum from the fruit basket on the kitchen table.

She receives some wary looks from various other girls, as though they expect that she might scream and cry at any moment, but Mallory brushes them off, knowing that every one of those girls is good at heart and means no harm, simply hungry for a little gossip.

Besides, larger issues at hand haunt her rather than being the resident ‘basket-case’, with Mallory feeling his unwelcome presence with her at all times. 

She wonders if he’s watching her right now. 

Sick of the questions she makes her way to the library, taking down a stack of books to begin her research. She assumes that the centuries of supernatural knowledge that lay packed within those books could aid her in some form or another.

She drops them on the table with an almost comically loud bang, yet she’s alone in the library, the others in class, so she chooses not to worry over it. Illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the window, she lifts open the first book - An extensive recording of high-power spells. 

It’s beautiful. An elaborate handwritten copy which must have dated back to the time of Salem, she feels honored to even touch it, the ink rubbing off and the pages yellowing at the corners, yet the contents are still entirely legible. 

As she begins to read, she finds that she has little success in finding anything of use. As fascinating as she may find the facts presented on any other given day they do little to stifle the questions in her brain.

It takes a substantial chunk of the afternoon, but she finally strikes gold in a copy of ‘1000 Spells and Their Prospective Dangers’ as she turns to the page of Tempus Infinitum - a spell that she never wants to utter again. 

Most of the contents of the page she knows very well, echoing everything that she remembers Myrtle and Cordelia having informed her before her first travel back to 1918, yet there is something in the small print that catches her eye. 

“Must be performed under a strict power vacuum, for fear of the power being misdirected.” She whispers to herself, rereading the line several times to herself. 

Now that’s something new.

Misdirected. In what sense? What does that mean? It is at this point that Mallory realizes that she knows very little about the nature of witchcraft itself, yet it’s a starting point and something that Mallory can work off of to perhaps unravel the situation that she seems to have found herself in.

////

Mallory skips dinner that evening and instead goes straight to Cordelia’s room, the whispers and odd looks from the other girls finally beginning to ebb away.

Knocking twice on the door, it subsequently opens, and she is asked to sit down on the chaise. 

“What can I help you with, Mallory,” Cordelia says, pouring tea into two china cups. 

Looking down at her hands in shame, Mallory eventually looks up to join Cordelia’s eye contact. “I firstly wanted to apologize for last night, it wasn’t the best impression--” 

“I never ask my girls to apologize for their past,” Cordelia cuts her self-pitying apology off, “witches will never have anything but a troubled past. I understand that it takes time to adjust.” 

Mallory gives her a small smile of gratitude.

“Nevertheless, it was rude to awaken you at such hours in the morning. I apologize.” 

“Whatever happened to you does not define who you are, my dear. Waking me was of little inconvenience.” 

They both smile at each other, and Mallory feels that same rush of elation that she felt upon her first return to the Academy, though with recent revelations that elation was somewhat tainted now. Cordelia’s motherly aura has remained the same throughout the many years that Mallory has known her, and Mallory knows how much she loves her dearly, although Cordelia is blind to the extent of Mallory’s love at this current moment.

They both fall into a comfortable silence.

“You have that look in your eyes, making me assume that there’s something more that you would like to discuss with me” Cordelia changes the subject.

After a brief pause, Mallory responds, “I did actually, and I understand if this question sounds a little odd and unprompted.” 

Cordelia, seeming intrigued, nods in response. 

“I was wondering,” Mallory begins, “if you could tell me what it means when power is misdirected.” 

“Misdirected?” Cordelia asks.

“As in, when a spell requiring such immense quantities of energy is… tainted, in a sense. When a power vacuum is broken and two large entities of power are interacting with each other at one time.” 

“You mean to ask about the consequences of the fragmentation of great powers and souls?” 

Mallory, despite not quite knowing what Cordelia is talking about, nods, hoping to find a logical explanation.

“Well, to understand such consequences you need to understand the essence of power and energies themselves.” 

Mallory nods, “I know a little. Power comes directly from the soul, bound to heaven and hell respectively.” 

“Exactly,” Cordelia responds, “and the bonding of power to the souls of certain individuals entrusted with such power, such as witches, makes it so that we can harness the powers to our own desires. However, power is not an entirely vapid substance. Power is almost alive, interacting in ways of its own accord.” 

“What do you mean?” Mallory asks. She had believed her knowledge on magic to be sound, her previous training to become the next supreme priming her excellently, yet only now does she realize how little she truly understands about her own nature as a witch. “How can power attract power?”

“Power, especially great quantities of it, such as required in a difficult spell, is much more dangerous and uncontrollable than you may think. Witches are taught that they are in control of their power, but in reality, it’s the opposite. Large amounts of power interact together in ways that supernatural beings cannot control, and if the quantities are too great then the colliding energies split and fragment.” 

Mallory looks back at Cordelia, baffled and overwhelmed by how little makes sense to her. Cordelia seems to understand Mallory’s confusion, simplifying her statement.

“Power comes from the soul,” Cordelia says, pausing slightly to wait for the look of registration on Mallory’s face, “and as a consequence, when two or more opposing entities of power are used at the same time it can cause the souls of those practicing to fragment.”

Mallory nods in understanding, though not entirely sure she understands it all. 

“Those fragmented souls bond, which can be incredibly dangerous for all those involved.”

“What happens to them?” 

“Usually nothing in life, other than a sense of connection between the two souls, drawing them closer, romantically or platonically. The real issue comes in death.”

Mallory feels her heartbeat quicken.

“Should one of the witches die, their soul cannot fully pass on to the afterlife, part of it remaining alive within the other witch, thus trapping them in limbo, living in the shadow of the other.”

“Does that mean that they aren’t entirely dead?”

“Exactly.” Cordelia confirms, “They are able to fully transcend into the human world at specific hours yet for the rest of it they remain in a sort of purgatory, able to interact with the world at certain times and at others being entirely detached and unable to interact. It must be a hellish existence, living in a blur.”

“How can they pass on? There must be some way to detach the souls,” says Mallory, trying as hard as she can to mask her panic so as not to arouse Cordelia’s suspicions.

Cordelia shakes her head softly, “Not that any of us are aware of; there have been incredibly few cases of this over the centuries. The soul cannot pass on until the other dies, at which point we, here on earth, have no idea what happens to the souls.” 

Mallory is quiet and returns to looking at her fingernails as if they are something interesting.

Cordelia stands up and smooths out her skirt, holding out her hand for Mallory to pull herself up with. 

“There’s no need for you to worry about it, Mallory. The power needed for fragmentation to occur is so immense that it is only used in the most advanced spells - spells which are too powerful for even I to attempt, and I’m the supreme - and having two people utilizing such power simultaneously in the same room; it’s almost unheard of. That’s why there are so few cases for us to study to gain an understanding.” 

Mallory thanks her once again for her understanding and kindness, as well as the answering of her question.

Just before she is to leave, Cordelia says softly, “Mallory, I never like to inquire about the pasts of my girls, but should I be worried? Are you in danger?” 

“No Cordelia, I’m fine. I simply read a book today and I was wondering what the terminology ‘power vacuum’ meant. I’m sorry to have caused any additional concern” She turns to leave the room.

She feels guilty the moment that the lie slips out of her mouth, having never been naturally inclined to deception, yet she knows that she is doing this for the protection of the coven.

///

Climbing up on her bed she finds another de-thorned rose on her bed.

For the first time, she feels no panic, just a crushing sense of sadness at the thought of having to spend the rest of eternity with him attached to her hip. 

It may be a life of purgatory for him, but Mallory’s life of having Michael Langdon attached to her like cancer would be hell-on-earth for her.

She doesn’t cry this time (she has cried so much in the last 24 hours that she is entirely devoid of tears), instead, she just lies on her bed and holds the smooth stem, spinning it around with her fingers, staring mesmerized at the way that the red petals spin and blur together.

///

When she awakens to see Michael staring down at her at 3 o’clock in the morning again she isn’t surprised. In fact, she isn’t even afraid anymore, her longing for answers far surpassing her superficial instinctive fear.

She keeps her breathing even and stares right into his eyes, somewhat delighted at the clear surprise and slight annoyance that he holds after seeing her lack of terror. She supposes that he has been waiting all day to make her squirm.

“I have to admit that I was expecting a little more of a reaction.” He says blankly. 

He picks up the rose on her bedside table and chuckles slightly to himself. “You’re not going to throw that one on me now, are you?”

“Why do you keep giving me those things? I know that you’re not trying to impress me; you aren’t stupid enough to try something like that.”

“Admittedly not,” he says, “but roses have always been my favorite flower; they remind me of my childhood. Besides, I thought that you would at least thank me for de-thorning them since you pricked your finger on the first one. You can’t say I’m not considerate.” 

Mallory wants to reach over and send a curse at him for his smug attitude, gouging his eyes out with the stem of the rose, yet she keeps herself contained, knowing that it would do no good to anger or hurt Michael further. If she is going to find a way to sever him from her she couldn’t do it without his compliance.

“You’re a psychopath.” She says, still looking directly at him, to which he only smiles.

There are more pressing issues at hand, however, and she turns to change the topic away from such trivial matters, craving to know more about him and what he remembered from his past life.

“What do you remember?” Mallory asks. “Do you remember the alternate future? The outpost?” 

A sneer of contempt grows on his face. “Crystal. I don’t know what you ‘witch-bitches’ did to me, or how you managed to turn back time, but you squandered my fucking plans. I ended the fucking world, the only clear objective I’ve ever had, and then you just had to go and ruin it!” 

She can see the anger rising in him, the sheer hatred that she remembers so well. It disgusts her. She is disgusted by the way that one person can hold so much hatred inside of themselves, though she supposes it is pitiable too, in a twisted sense. 

“Calm down, anger won’t do any good for you now. You’re stuck here and you aren’t getting out unless we work together.”

She sees his hands clenching in the dim light and his jaw locking closed before he breathes out a sigh to try and calm himself and continues answering her question. He seems more dedicated to detaching himself from her than his own superficial anger.

“All I remember is your ‘supreme’ shoving a knife into her chest and you plunging into the water. After that? It’s a blur. It’s like I was detached from my body. I ran onto the street - I can’t even tell you why - and I died. Does that satisfy you?” The malice creeps back into his voice as it raises louder, bordering on a shout.

Mallory immediately shushes him. “Be quiet!” She whispers. “You already aroused enough problems last night.” 

“That was entirely of your own doing; I wasn’t exactly the one screaming like a pathetic child.” Though he complies, lowering his tone so as not to awaken the others.

Mallory can feel herself silently screaming inside. Is this what the rest of her life is going to be like? She simply cannot resign herself to the fact that if she is unable to find a solution to their predicament that she is going to be trapped with him until the day she dies. And afterward? What about afterward? Cordelia said that no witch alive knew what could happen to conjoined souls afterward.

With Michael’s new information, however, she feels entirely secure in her knowledge that they have been bound together by soul fragmentation, with it providing the only logical reasoning as to how he somehow wasn’t dead. 

Looking up at his eyes again, she asks, “Did you use your magic… right before Tempus Infinitum, that is, in large quantities?” 

“I threw everything I could at you in those last moments. What else would you expect? Yet it clearly didn’t work.” Bitterness taints his voice.

She feels sick to her stomach discussing the bunker with him, it serving as a haunting reminder that this was the same man that had terrified her to the core and ruined her life previously, yet here they were, talking, though perhaps not cordially, both seated on her bed. 

She had tried to distract herself from the truth of who he was by focusing on how this version of Michael who was visiting her didn’t look like the same satanic man that she had grown to know, with this Michael looking younger and much more cherubic, yet she couldn’t escape reality now.

“What I have to propose to you now does not detract from the fact that you make me sick - you disgust me to the deepest parts of my soul and it breaks my heart to know that you aren’t burning in hellfire for eternity ” Mallory begins, “and don’t for a second think that we are allies, though I doubt that you are wanting the same.” 

His eyebrows lift up in interest. Mallory pulls the duvet off of herself and reaches into her closet, drawing out a jacket.

“I doubt my father would let me burn for eternity,” Michael mocks, “though I can’t say that a proposal does sound interesting.” His eyes narrow in confusion as she starts slipping on a pair of shoes. “What the hell are you doing? What do you want to discuss” 

“We’re going for a walk,” Mallory states, straightening out her jacket, “in the garden, we have a lot to discuss and I don’t think that we can solve anything if we’re trying to be quiet the whole time. I want to discuss what on earth we’re going to do to get rid of you.”

////


	4. through other eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael and Mallory discuss their predicament.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you look at me actually updating quickly? Who would have thought?  
> I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their kind comments and constructive criticism, it's really motivating me to keep writing this, and knowing that people are excited for each chapter is so encouraging. This is just a short chapter but hopefully you enjoy it.

He doesn’t know what it is about her that fascinates him so deeply. 

He hates her. That much is for sure. He looks at her perfectly wavy hair and pretty smile, which was of course never reserved for him, and feels utter contempt. He remembers how pathetic she was in the bunker, reminding him more of an ant than a girl, clad in gray and undeniably longing for another time, yet as he sees he here with her ‘sisters’ he notices something new within her. 

She is no longer just surviving. She is thriving. He wants to slap the rosy glow out of her cheeks and rip the hair out of her scalp, but there is another equally disturbing call from within him to protect her and keep her out of harm’s way, terrifying him in a way that nothing else ever has before. 

All of this is her fault. That is something that he constantly reminds himself. She not only ruined his plans but she killed him, or at least something of the sort. 

For someone who has lived his entire life in a state of confusion, Michael has never been more confused than he is in this very moment. Even worse than not knowing who he is, he does not know what he is.

He is not a ghost, of that he is certain, having spent enough time around them to know that his situation is entirely abnormal in that respect. He has spent the last to days in what felt like a delirious haze, unable to comprehend coherent sentences, almost like he was drunk, the only time that the feeling would pass was in the deep of the night when he was with her. 

He spends his time picking roses in the garden and pulling out the thorns, focusing his mind on the simplicity and repetitive nature of the task, deriving slight satisfaction from the knowledge that his gifts will deeply disturb her. He knows that no one in the house can see him, not even Mallory, so he spends the rest of the time wreaking havoc within the house, knocking over vases and tripping over the girls. 

He is acting like a child, but he can’t help himself. He longs for the utter chaos that he feeds off of, craving the strong high that comes from control and dominance over the situation, yet the mundanity of the coven is leaving him so bored that he craves Mallory’s attention more than anything in the world.

Then what is he? He keeps a cool exterior yet he can’t help but inwardly panic.

He hates it. The feeling of powerlessness and degradation, like he is a little boy again, with his only respite being in the company of a deplorable witch. Hence his frustration at not being able to see the tears from his little witch that we had been thinking about all day. Her fear of him made him feel the illusion of control even when he knew that he had never been so out of it.

Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he walks with her down the stairs he halts, shocked by the reflection he sees. 

“I look like a fucking idiot!” He can’t help but exclaim, staring at the short, curly hair and pale skin that looks he hasn’t seen the sunlight in decades. A sense of bitter nostalgia sweeps over him, making him nauseous, as he stares directly in the face of the old Michael. The young man that he used to be before he found his calling as the antichrist.

She snorts and he curses himself for his moment of uncontrolled shock in her presence. “Be quiet, for God’s sake.” She whispers. 

He stares at the portraits as the descend down the staircase, until, at the bottom, he is faced with the painting depicting Myrtle Snow, on which his eyes linger a little longer. 

“I didn’t think that this one was dead.” He simply states, remembering her vividly.

“There is very little that you know about us.” She responds. 

Fascinating, he concludes, she is utterly fascinating.

////

Mallory closes the garden door firmly behind them, hugging her coat closer to her body as she is met with the chill of the night air. 

“You are disgusting and without redemption,” she begins, looking directly ahead at the bushes as they begin to walk side by side, about one meter apart, “but we have found ourselves in a predicament. 

“Oh goody, she speaks, I thought we were going to have to walk in silence all night.” He sarcastically jokes.

“Now is not the time for sarcasm.” 

She sees the blatant discomfort in his eyes, most likely she assumes at her lack of fear and bluntness. Mallory doesn’t know where it is coming from but she feels emboldened by some otherworldly power that has subdued her horror, giving her a superficial sense of discipline over their interactions. 

He is silent but gives her a small smirk, yet Mallory notes with slight satisfaction that the uncomfortable look has not left his eyes.

“There is something seriously wrong here,” she begins. 

He expression immediately sobers, “wrong in what sense?”

“You already know that this is not normal. You are not supposed to be here; you are supposed to be dead. Simple as that.” 

She notices the anger simmering under his blank expression, yet carries on regardless.

“All day I’ve been researching, and though the resources are slim I think that the truth behind this situation might be much more serious than anything I could have imagined.” 

“Cut to the point already, little bird,” 

Mallory sighs. He won’t take this well, and his unpredictability is the only thing that worries her.

“We’re bonded, our souls, that is. I don’t know how, but I think I know why.” 

His lips part slightly, though he says nothing else. 

“The magic that you performed in conjunction with mine before I changed the timeline, it created a chasm of power of sorts, fragmenting our souls and bonding them together.” 

“And what am I supposed to do with this information,” he says, though his breathing quickens slightly. Is this panic? Mallory thinks. It seems odd to see him react in such a human way when she only ever saw him as an entity of evil and nothing more. 

“It gets worse,” Mallory continues, and she sees Michael’s eyes widening slightly. “After your death, you weren’t able to fully pass on to the afterlife, and as much as I wish that you were burning in hellfire right now part of your soul remains alive in mine.” 

He grabs her arm and she flinches, his hand almost entirely encompassing her frail upper arm. “And that’s why I can interact with you as though I’m alive… because at this moment right now I am.” 

“Y-Yes.” 

“Interesting,” is all that he says, loosening the grip on her arm before eventually pulling away, Mallory breathing out a small sigh of relief at the release. 

“You don’t seem to get it,” she continues, “I don’t know how to break the bond. Cordelia said that there are no cases recording of the souls being set free again. For now, it seems, we are stuck.” She feels tears pricking at the edges of her eyes, and so she turns away from his gaze, pretending to be intently focused on the bushes as she furiously blinks them away. 

His breathing becomes even heavier as his hands clench yet again, and Mallory can’t help but want to shrink away and hide. 

“Stuck?” he says, an implacable emotion that she is unfamiliar with rising in Michael’s voice - perhaps a mixture of panic, anger, and fear. She has never seen him afraid and despite the gravity of their conversation she can’t help but be fascinated by the layers to him. “For how long?” 

“Forever. At least until I die, after which, I don’t know.” 

She sees him toying with the word in his head. Forever. His anger is growing greater and greater by the millisecond.

“You fucking bitch. This is all your fault! Maybe you shouldn’t have run me over, huh?” 

Mallory can’t help but feel offended. “Could you maybe stop calling me that? Maybe you shouldn’t have blown up the world, huh?” 

“What am I supposed to do with an eternity of this! Eternity!”

“We;re both victims of this! Do you think I’m gaining any pleasure from this?” Both of them are shouting now.

“Fuck this shit, I’m leaving!” 

“And going where? Where do you have to go? I’m all you have right now, and like it or not I want you gone as much as you want to be gone!” She shouts after him as he begins to walk away into the shadows. 

He turns around, throwing his hands in the air. “You’re trying to tell me that I’m resigned to a lifetime of this and yet you still have the audacity to tell me to calm down!” 

Mallory feels the ground heating from beneath her as it begins to split, one of the bushes shriveling up and turning to embers as a physical manifestation of Michael’s fury. 

She runs over to him and put her hand on his arm, mirroring what he had done only minutes before, though this time in a comforting way, not violently grabbing hold of his arm but instead placing her hand on it gently. She doesn’t know what she is doing, and never in her right mind would she wish to comfort him of her own accord, yet she feels like she is out of her body, watching it move by its own accord. She supposes that this is their souls acting subconsciously and she hates the feeling of powerlessness that it supplies her with.

“What are you doing?” he asks, no longer shouting, though staring at her hand resting on his arm.

“You need to calm down. It’s not fair, I understand, but you know better than anyone that life isn’t fair. We have to take what life gives us and work through it.” 

The ground has healed itself and the embers have gone out, though the bush is rendered to ash. Mallory focuses all of her power of restoring the bush to its original beauty, as she reaches back to turn back time, watching it return to its previous state.

Is that a tear in his eye? She can’t help but wonder as she stares directly at him, but she pushes her thoughts aside, blaming the abnormal shining in his gaze as a trick of the moonlight. 

“That’s where you witches are wrong,” Michael says, “saying that we are but slaves to life is something that only the most feeble-minded would admit to. I controlled life and death and there was nothing anyone could do to stop me. There was no god to reprimand me and no angels to curse me.” 

“And where did that get you,” she responds, “are you happier now? Do you feel free? You’ve never been more trapped in your life.” She pauses for a moment. “You are just as much a victim of life as the rest of us. You think that because you are half of the underworld that you are above the rest of us humans but you couldn’t be more wrong; you are the greatest pawn of them all.” 

His eyes narrow, though the rest of his face remains incomprehensible, locked behind a solid mask.

“You’ve been the pawn of your father, the pawn of the cooperative, the pawn of anyone that could get their hands on you. You’re not your own person and you never were, and that’s the saddest story of them all.” 

His unpassable mask instantly clicks back into the classic smugness that she has grown used to. “Do you truly think so much of yourself as to think that you know me?” he asks, “I don’t need to listen to your psychobabble, you don’t know shit.” 

Mallory says nothing, yet she notices the way that his personality has switched. She has struck a chord and she is entirely aware of it.

She is shocked by the empathy flowing out of her towards him, hating every part of it. She can’t help but pity this poor man standing in front of her, and after having seen his mask crack she finds herself no longer afraid of him. 

He is human, and she doesn’t know if that disturbs her or comforts her. How could a human commit such heinous acts against his own species? Against innocents?

“I’m not vapid. I’m not an idiot. Most importantly, I’m not afraid of you, not anymore.” 

“Then you’re even dumber than I thought.” He walks away, slipping into the shadows and seemingly disappearing into the surroundings, leaving Mallory alone in the garden as she hugs her jacket even tighter to her chest and shuffles in her shoes. 

Fascinating, she thinks, he is utterly fascinating.


	5. God is not dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who would have thought that I could update so quickly? Thank you so much for everyone's support and kindness. This chapter is more mindless fluff than anything else, but hopefully everyone enjoys it. :)

It is only now that her first proper day at Robichaux’s has begun that Mallory feels the crushing hole that the missing witches have left in the coven, even if the other girls are unaware. 

She longs to see Misty swaying in the corner, Madison strutting down the corridors and Myrtle laughing at something she said so badly that she begins to see phantom illusions of them at certain times, having to remind herself that what she is witnessing is simply her imagination, like a mirage.

She wonders how they are, yet she knows that in hell’s grasp that the answer is unlikely to be positive.

She sits at the breakfast table with Lea and Antonia, two of the girls that she was friends with before, striking up a conversation with them surrounding their families and hopes for the future, before walking herself to the office, ready to have her powers examined by Cordelia. 

Mallory is determined not to reveal the full extent of her powers. It would have seemed a foreign concept to the old Mallory, who always glowed at the praise she got, but she doesn’t want to be the next supreme, at least not yet. She doesn’t want to watch Cordelia’s anxiety grow at the thought of her powers soon becoming redundant before she fades away, all she wants is the normalcy that she represents.

Sitting face to face with Cordelia she is faced with an array of tasks, ranging from inconsequential to monumental. She enchants an apple to look like an orange, levitates a book, relights a candle, fills a glass of water, yet when Cordelia places a dead bird in front of her she feigns incompetence. 

“For your next task, I would like to see if you can return life to this sparrow. Can you do that, Mallory?” 

Mallory shakes her head, despite the fact that it hurts her to do so. The poor animal deserves a second chance at life. 

“I don’t think so, but I guess it’s worth a try,” she says, hovering her hands over the little corpse, but at the last minute, she directs her powers away from the body, causing the bird to remain dead.

She hangs her head down in fake disappointment and Cordelia shrugs, a comforting smile on her face. “Don’t worry, dear, I didn’t expect you to be able to do it the first time, with proper training expect to be able to accomplish such tasks in no time.” 

The rest of the examination passes in a blur, as do her lessons. She is assigned to group 2, a select group of talented witches, yet not the most promising that the coven has to offer. Mallory thinks that this will suit her well for the time being, and she revels in the routine that the lessons have to offer. Despite the issues plaguing her at night, she can at least know that her days are planned out meticulously hour for hour. 

The girls in her class begin talking to her during their breaks, eager to ‘scope out the fresh meat’, as one of the young witches, Jezebel, so unceremoniously puts it. She remembers all of the girls’ faces from her old life, yet delights in the nonsensical small talk that they provide her with.

They talk about various topics, mostly boys and their favorite foods, but Mallory can’t help but be drawn to their distinct personalities and appearances. Jezebel loves guitar and rock and has a pink streak in her hair, which Mallory thinks suits her very well. Alice is the smallest - a waif of a girl with skinny legs and long red hair - yet Mallory finds it pleasantly ironic that it is her voice that projects the loudest and most outspoken thoughts. Eleanor doesn’t say much, but she smiles pleasantly and Mallory finds her very becoming, like a Disney princess. 

The old Mallory wouldn’t have given these girls a second thought. Despite a good-natured attitude and politeness having always been present within her, she had always ignored the other girls, not out of spite or prejudice, but simply due to the fact that she felt that she had larger issues at hand. 

She assumes that the special treatment she had received had driven a wedge between her and the others, making her seemingly untouchable or intimidating, and though the old Mallory adored the praise, the new Mallory adores this newfound camaraderie. 

At dinner, Eleanor trips, seemingly over thin air, spilling her spaghetti on Zoe, who, despite insisting that there was no damage done, seems slightly ticked off behind her pretty smile. 

Mallory hides her face behind her hands and groans silently to herself, detaching herself from the chaos of the spilled spaghetti and profuse apologies. She knows that somehow, somewhere, Michael is laughing like a giddy eight-year-old. She can imagine him placing his foot in the path of Eleanor’s own and chuckling as the spaghetti, in all it saucy glory, flies, seemingly in slow motion. 

She directs a death stare into thin air, hoping that she’s perhaps staring in his direction. She quickly stops though, realizing that she looks like a lunatic with a vendetta against oxygen.

////

“Was that really necessary?” She asks him that night, Michael sitting cross-legged on the ground and her on the garden bench.

“Was what?” he asks, with a seemingly smug smile. 

“That stunt with the spaghetti.” 

He smiles slightly, though she can tell that he’s trying to repress a laugh. 

“You seem in a better mood tonight, at least,” Mallory remarks.

“I’m not in a good mood.” he states simply, “I’m just enjoying the absence of bullshit diagnoses of my mental state and the fact that you brought me something to eat.” He gestures to the muffin in his hands, before ripping off another piece and eating it. 

“Do you have to cuss in every sentence?” she asks.

“I’m seemingly stuck talking to you for eternity, I might as well have fun with it,” he says, mouth full of muffin.

She can’t deny that she’s mildly unsettled by their easy flow of conversation. Despite every rational thought in her head screaming the opposite, something within her craves his company - something which she blames solely on the bond, yet here they are, conversing almost like old friends having a picnic. 

This man destroyed her life, yet with every word coming out of his mouth she finds herself growing more and more comfortable in his presence. She almost thinks that when he talks with his mouth full that it’s endearing. 

Endearing? What kind of curse is this? Yet when they are sitting in the garden, both barely visible to each other in the dim moonlight of the new moon she finds herself naturally dissociating this younger Michael from the Michael of the past. 

“Do you ever find it ironic that I transcend at exactly three o’clock every night?” he asks, smirking slightly. 

Mallory looks at him confused, shrugging. “Why would that be ironic?” 

“It’s the witches’ hour,” 

She had never thought about it like that. She guesses it is.

They sit in a silence which is, paradoxically, uncomfortably comfortable, Mallory’s head spinning in the meantime. 

There’s something within her that knows that he will not harm a single hair on her head, and she can’t explain what it is. Perhaps it is the unknown nature of their situation, with neither of them knowing what would happen to the other if one of them came to harm, yet there is something else that creates a sense of familiarity between them, and she despises it. 

“Tell me about yourself.” He has finished the muffin at this point, folding the muffin case and placing it to his side. 

“That’s not fair,” she rebuts, “you can’t act all edgy when I bring up your life and then ask me about my own.” 

He looks deeply offended. “Did you just call me edgy? Besides, they always kept you hidden from me. I know nothing about you.”

She sighs. “I was born in California, like you, and had a religious mother and an overbearing grandma. You can expect how my occult powers went down with them.” 

He starts to pick at the grass and looks up at her with a knowing look. “I can imagine. What did they do?” 

She bitterly laughs. “Everything. They took me to church every morning before school, took me to every Catholic confessor they could find, recited bible verses to me over the dinner table. They even tried to exorcize me once. That was when I decided that enough was enough and I took the first bus I could heading east.” 

He can’t hold in the laughter anymore. “You?! Exorcized? You don’t have a bad bone in your body, it’s awfully boring.” 

“I assume that you have more experience in the field of exorcisms than most.” 

Michael nods. “Unfortunately, yes. I was never more scared in my life.” 

He immediately stops talking, as though he’s said too much. Somehow the thought of him being scared continues to fascinate her. The humanity in him is becoming more prevalent with each passing day. 

“Neither was I.” For some reason, Mallory feels the need to reassure him. “What did you do after.” 

Without hesitation, he responds with, “I slit the priest’s throat to the bone and continued playing Mario Kart. My grandma killed herself that same afternoon.” 

Suddenly the illusion of his humanity is, once again, violently shattered, and Mallory can swear that she tastes the bile rise in her throat. 

“You’re sick.” She spits at him. 

“Am I really? You act like you wouldn’t have done the same had you been given the opportunity.” 

“I would never commit such a crime against humanity - against good and innocent people.” 

He shrugs. “You just didn’t have a knife.” 

Her breathing has become heavier as she rises to stand, and looking down at him she hisses, “How can you live with yourself. Did you never for one-second fear God? Did you not wish that you could be something else?” 

He rises to his feet quickly and smoothly, dusting off the picked grass on his trousers. “God is dead; he never did anything for me. Anyways, I would have thought with that childhood that you just described that you would have lost faith in religion too. ” 

“God never came to you because you never asked him to. You simply resigned yourself to your fate.” 

He looks at her as though she were a child to which he was explaining the simplest of concepts, and he follows her as she begins to walk in the direction of the house. “And that’s exactly what it was - fate! None of this was supposed to happen had you not changed history. How can you act all obedient when you yourself played God to the highest degree?” 

“I was not playing God, I was saving humanity from you! Can you honestly look around and say that your life became better after what you did? Did you not get lonely? After destroying humanity what else is there to life?” 

“I was fulfilling my purpose, loneliness had no effect.” 

She stares blankly into his eyes. “You lie,” she says, her tone lowering from its previously high-pitched rant, “You’re a liar. I lived 19 years in solitude before finding this place and let me tell you that it was the most soul-crushing time of my life.” 

“Does it even matter now?” he responds, “You’ve won, at least for now. If you wanted me to be lonely then 'mission accomplished'.” 

“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even on you.” She is surprised to hear the sincerity in her voice. I've won nothing because there never was a game, simply life and death.

Both of them fall into silence as their breathing patterns ebb into their natural states. 

“You confuse me.” He says. “I can’t tell what you want or who you are.” 

“I just told you where I came from, what more is there to know. I want people to be people and I want life to be good, just like every other decent person.” 

“You obsess over it, much more than anyone else I’ve ever met, so much so that you would be willing to forgive someone like me.” 

“A purpose keeps us going in life, you know better than anyone. It’s a shame that the purpose you chose for yourself had to be what it was. I’ll never forgive you, but for the time being I’m stuck with you, as you are with me. We may as well try to speak cordially, but you’re making it hard.” She refuses to look back at him and turns away, walking back into the house. He peculiarly says nothing as she walks away. 

As she lies in her bed she ponders over them. They are like oil and water, that much she is sure of, and can seemingly never end a conversation without a fight. Mallory wonders whether Michael was so confrontational with everyone in his life or if this was something reserved for her. 

She realizes how little she truly knows about him as a person, and as much as she wants to simply tell him to leave her alone to her rest every night there is a force pushing her to talk with him every night, making her anticipate every conversation between them, anxious to learn more about him. 

Michael must be a psychology student’s wet dream and despite her disgust, she is hooked.


	6. in life and death

Days blend into night and nights blend into day; the fascination grows. 

Her disgust is ever-present, yet she can’t help but feel that she has grown used to his presence. She has grown used to the roses on her bedside, no longer retching at the smell and secretly beginning to enjoy the fragrance. She has grown used to the sporadic feeling of his eyes on her, though she assumes that he doesn’t watch for long due to the mundanity of her daily tasks. She has even grown used to the chaos that he brings - the broken vases and tripped girls. 

What she had previously imagined being her greatest nightmare becomes her new normal, and Mallory doesn’t know whether to feel perturbed by the fact or simply grateful. 

Life within the coven leaves her glowing and radiant, her crown back on her head where it belongs and her smile growing with every passing day. 

She grows closer to the girls in ways that she had never previously done, particularly with Eleanor. How could she possibly have ignored such an angel before? 

Comically introverted and shy, Eleanor blossoms in one-on-one conversations, her input endlessly interesting and captivating. They sit together on Eleanor’s bed and discuss a whole array of topics, from their lives before to their favorite bands and ice-cream flavors, making daisy chains and performing minor spells as they do it. 

Mallory’s initial impression of Eleanor proves correct. She truly is like a Disney princess, from her soft-spoken voice to her pretty, long blonde hair. Mallory is mostly happy to have found a true friend, and without Coco present at the academy, she has felt such a presence deeply lacking.

Mallory often thinks of Coco - the friend whom she so dearly missed. She wonders what she is doing and how she is faring. She longs for nothing more than to go out there, find her and bring her home, yet she knows that Coco will soon be brought to the academy, it just isn’t her time yet. 

“They’re beautiful,” Eleanor remarks, playing with a rose in her hands, twiddling it between her fingertips. “I’ve always thought that it was smart that you took the thorns off. Can I borrow a couple?” She asks, looking somewhat sheepish. “Just for today.” She adds on quickly as an afterthought. 

Eleanor laces two of the roses into her braid and stares at herself in the mirror. Mallory wants to tell her that the roses, despite their beauty, are irrevocably tainted. Eleanor looks so happy as she adjusts the flowers, however, that she decides against it. 

///

Michael and her talk and talk and talk. They have talked for hours but Mallory finds that the conversation is always centered around her. 'Did your parents ever hurt you? Did you ever feel like hurting them? Why wouldn’t you hurt them? They destroyed your life. I would have.'

Mallory shares it all and lays her heart and soul bare before him. She presumes that it doesn’t matter much anyway; he is entirely incapable of using anything against her. 

He performs magic in front of her - harmless things such as turning water to ice, levitating benches, changing the colors of the leaves. One time he kills a cat in front of her, however. That doesn’t go down so well. He simply seems happy to feel a sense of control again.

She no longer cowers when she awakens to him standing at the foot of her bed. She simply throws on her shoes and coat and they leave for the garden without a single word. It has become their normalcy.

Despite her growing comfort, she is always concerned by the way that she doesn’t know anything about him. He controls their conversations, steering them in the direction of her, never himself. 

She’s curious about this mystical childhood that she remembers Madison talking about, which festered his darkness and drove him to the edge of humanity.

One night, after she has grown tired of telling the same story about her life, she grows confident and asks him the questions that have been burning her tongue from even before they had met face to face.

“How were you born?” 

“Well that was a pretty big leap of subject, we were just discussing your second dog.” 

“I’ve already told you that story three times!” she complains, “Enough about me, I beg you.” 

He pauses and looks down at the grass. It is a full moon tonight and she can see the discomfort etched on to his face as clear as if it were day.

“The funny thing is that I don’t really know.” He pauses once again and looks up. “You know I’m a twin?” He says with a small smile on his face. 

No. No, she didn’t. Her surprise is rendered evident on her face.

“I have a sister. I killed her.” The small smile drops from his face. “Don’t give me that look. I never meant to. I developed faster in the womb and she was stillborn. There was nothing I could do about it, yet I still think that it made my mother hate me - that and other things of course.”

A small sympathetic smile grows on her face entirely against her own will, but for the first time she doesn’t fight it and simply obeys her body.

“I’m assuming that you know the lore behind the house where I was born.” She nods, entirely aware of the trapped souls of all those unfortunate enough to die on the premises. “They never once let me meet her, despite the fact that her soul was very much alive in the house, though I guess it was for the best.”

“What then?” 

“My mother died giving birth to me. They say that she was kind and beautiful, but she never extended any of that kindness to me; I only ever saw her a handful of times. It was my grandmother that was my true mentor during my formative years. She was a woman with an incredible tolerance for darkness. She had lost all of her children and was desperate another baby to shape in her image and she received me. She thought I was heaven sent. She was wrong. She killed herself, but I’ve already told you that story. I seem to remember that you got very upset at it.” He laughs sullenly to himself. 

“What about the rest of your family?” She asks. For once he seems unusually cooperative and responds.

“Then there was my ‘father’, Tate. A glorified sperm donor. He raped my mother and couldn’t deal with the consequences.” 

She gasps. “Who could do such a thing?” 

“He shot up a school and killed his stepfather. I’m not telling you to take any life advice from him.” 

She wants to laugh at his dry-humored joke, yet reminds herself of the gravity of what he is telling her and keeps her expression blank and her gaze intently on his as to show that she is listening.

“And then there was my mother’s husband, Ben. He thought of me as his own son but soon gave up on me like everyone else. I loved him though, for a time at least.” 

“Do you not love them now?” 

“Do you still love your parents after what they did to you?” He asks, and she shakes her head slightly but hesitantly.

“Exactly.” He says.

“I may no longer love them a daughter should love those who gave her life, but I could never hate them.”

He cocks his head to the side. “How is that possible?” 

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the word ‘hate’, Michael. Once you understand a person to their core there is no way that you can hate them anymore.” 

Suddenly Mallory is struck by an overwhelming sensation of confusion. 

She no longer hates him. 

How could she? She may not understand his actions or his thoughts, yet she feels sorry for him, that sympathy translating to an understanding, albeit weak, of his being. 

“Then of course there's my real father. I guess you could say that I never understood him.”

She feels frozen in place as she slowly nods. His willingness to talk tonight amazes her.

“I failed him like I did everyone else.” 

Her breathing slows down as she stands up from the bench and kneels down by him on the grass, touching his arm in sympathy. ‘What on earth am I doing?’ She repeats in her head like a mantra. For some reason, he doesn’t jerk away from her touch.

She notices a small tear in his left eye and her hand moves subconsciously to wipe it away, retracting her arms as soon as she realizes what she is doing.

“What’s happening to me,” he says, clearly disgusted by the vulnerability embedded in his voice. “What the fuck are you doing.” 

“I don’t have a clue.” She simply states. “Trying to help, I guess.”

“What happening to you.” Michael sneers. “You hate me and I hate you. You were the one that said that that would never change. You make me weak. I despise you.” 

Her breathing quickens. “We’re past that and you know it. I know for one that you don’t hate me anymore.” 

“Liar.” 

“I understand you, at least I think I do, and thus I can’t hate you. My best guess is that you feel the same.” 

Something comes over the both of them as they move closer to each other like two magnets inching closer, both of them seemingly unable to break a trance. 

It is Mallory who kisses him first, their lips coming together slowly at first yet quickly developing into something feverish and desperate. She expects him to throw her off and hit her, just as she expects herself to do the same to him, yet now that they are physically connected they are unable to detach themselves from each other. 

Instead of violently pulling away, he tangles one hand in her hair, resting his other hand on the grass as he leans deeper in.

She is shocked by the energy that she feels pulsating between the two of them. The cliche has become true and they have truly become two souls intertwined in the most literal sense. The power of both of them combined pulsates through her veins, both the power and the kiss leaving her dizzy and overwhelmed with euphoria. 

She is entirely out of her mind as reaches her arms around his neck to pull him in closer. There is a small voice in her mind screaming at her to stop but at this moment, for the first moment in her life, she truly does not care. 

“What the fuck are we doing.” He says against her lips. 

“I don’t know,” she responds, though she can’t seem to pull herself away. The voice in her head screaming to stop is growing power with every second and eventually she breaks away, looking anywhere except for his eyes, panting like a dog in shame and exertion. 

“You’ve cursed me.” He spits out, looking as dazed as she has ever seen him. 

“No.” She whispers, still recovering. 

Staring at his expression she notices a confusing array of emotions. Confusion. Hatred. Fear. Something else that she can’t put her finger on.

She stands to her feet and brushes the grass stains off of her nightgown, watching him as he does the same. “I- I need to go to bed. I’m tired.” 

“You can’t just leave.” Michael says, “Not after that.”

“What else is there to do? I need to think.”

She turns and begins to walk away, closing the door solidly behind her. Despite herself, a small smile emerges on her face and hse touches her lips. The feeling of power was intoxicating, as was the feeling of his lips. She had hardly ever kissed anyone in her life and the excitement felt good. 

She is afraid of her feelings, feeling terrified of the empathy for him that she feels surging through her veins. 

///

She sleeps fitfully for the rest of that night, tossing and turning in her bed, unable to fall asleep, wanting to bang her head against the headboard. 

Finally, she manages to let sleep overtake her, though she is almost instantly woken by a piercing scream that leaves her head ringing in discomfort.

In her delirious, sleep-deprived state she clumsily runs down the staircase, tripping over her own feet as she does so, only to be greeted by the image of a nightmare, to which she has to pinch herself to remind herself that she is not in a bad dream.

Zoe kneels hugging a limp body to her chest, surrounded by girls and with Cordelia standing over watching with tears in her eyes. Zoe is screaming and crying, as are the others.

Mallory inches closer to see the body, only to be greeted by the crushing sight of Eleanor’s limp state, her throat slit and heart torn from her body, a pentagram drawn in blood on her previously beautiful forehead. 

Cordelia reads out a note attached to Eleanor’s body, choking back her tears as she does so. “The dark lord has guided us here, where our savior resides. Release him to us or there will be more.”

Mallory chokes, feeling the bile rising in her throat as she lets out a scream of her own. 

Michael, what the fuck did you do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry! I hated killing Eleanor. I honestly loved that girl.


	7. 7. forgive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleanor's death sends a wave of sadness over the coven, and Michael struggles with his own emotions.

They bury Eleanor the same day, ignoring the tradition of an open casket so as not to have to look at her gruesome disfigurement a second longer in an attempt to remember her as the girl she was in life, not the victim she became in death.

It’s a somber affair - as are all funerals - but an overwhelming sense of anxiety amongst every witch present taints the procession. As they stand huddled around her grave, Cordelia gives her eulogy, remarking on Eleanor’s kindness, intelligence and strength, yet Mallory can hear her voice trembling as she does so.

As they lay the casket down into the ground, Mallory lets out a whimper into her hand and says a solemn prayer her friend.

///

Lessons are canceled for the day and the girls feel as though they are living in a trance. No one speaks. No one eats. It is almost as though no one breathes. 

They huddle together in Queenie’s room like mice as Zoe hands out cups of tea and coffee, some shedding silent tears and others biting their nails anxiously. Cordelia sits in a chair observing them all in a silent fashion.

Mallory can no longer cry, instead, she sits up against the wall in a near catatonic state. She has seen more death than anyone else in this room, yet she has never been able to grasp the concept of it. She hadn’t known Eleanor for long, yet she knows that if there were any of them that deserved to live life to the fullest amongst them, it was her. She won’t get that chance now.

She needs to talk to Michael, she knows it, yet she can’t bring herself to move, instead letting her thoughts consume her. 

Was he involved? Was this his grandest sick game? To earn her confidence and then proceed to destroy her from within? Mallory wouldn’t say that she had grown to trust him but she had to admit, in the most secret and forbidden part of her soul, that there had grown a tenderness for him. They had kissed. 

Dear God, they had kissed, and the only thing that disturbed her about it was the fact that it hadn’t disgusted her. It felt natural, to the extent at which it terrified her more than words could articulate. 

Mallory had vowed that blood would never again be spilled on the floors of Miss Robichaux’s Academy and she had miserably failed. Eleanor had paid the price for her own shortcomings.

///

Michael watches from afar under the wretched haze as they lower the casket six-feet under and pinches his arm, aching to feel something. 

His emotions are a wreck, playing with his mind and taunting him as they do so. Looking at the broken body of the once innocent and beautiful girl he expected to feel the rush that he longed for - the adrenaline and joy pulsing through his veins. He feels nothing. To his dismay, the blood doesn’t inspire passion within him, only an aching numbness.

He dares almost say he feels something beyond numbness, and, against his wishes, an entirely new sensation that he hasn’t felt in years comes over him. Guilt. 

Not that the girl died for him, for of that he was sure, but guilt at Mallory’s grief-stricken face as she chokes back sobs. He couldn’t care less what happened to the girl, she was insipid and boringly innocent, he cares about the other one. The living one. 

He no longer wants to tear Mallory’s throat out when he sees her, instead craving her company like nothing else he ever had before. He must have plucked every rose from the rosebush, smashed every plate in the kitchen, tugged the hair of every little witch, but now he is bored. He craves the mental stimulation that Mallory brings. He craves something even more. 

It is at moments like these that he longs to scream out and have himself heard, instead of being stuck in this isolated hellscape for 23 hours a day. 

‘It wasn’t me!’ He wants to shout at her. He’s not an idiot. He knows that she will blame him. They have come far in their mutual civilities to each other, but they are by no means friends. They may have kissed but they are by no means lovers. 

He chuckles to himself, finding it wildly ironic that the first time that something good happens to him in what seems to be years that it needs to be turned on its head in such a way. He remembers the way his pulse quickened for the first time in years when she came close to him, overwhelming him with sheer emotion. He wants to feel that again; he craves it. 

Whether the emotions were positive or not, lust or shock, he does not know, but he knows that it was something, and that is all he can ask for right now.

He follows Mallory into the room in which the witches sit huddled together, exchanging cups of tea and kind words, sitting beside her leaning against the wall. He wonders if she can feel his presence near her, or if she has blocked all thoughts of him from entering her mind.

///

Tonight Mallory decides that she will wait for him on the bench in the garden, counting down the minutes on the clock until the clock strikes three o’clock and he will transcend. 

She is fully clothed this time, dressed in long black trousers and a full puffy jacket that has been zipped up despite the relative humidity, unlike most nights where she simply dons her nightgown and slippers. She won’t dare allow her flimsy nightgown to make her vulnerable and laughable. Her coat is like armor, even if it seems ludicrous in the Louisiana summer air. 

She doesn’t allow her breath to catch in her throat when she sees him walking out of the bushes towards her. She doesn’t know what to say, so she remains silent. 

“Mallory,” he says, stopping shy of a meter in front of where she is seated. She still can’t say a word. Unwilling tears well up in her eyes - the same tears that she had been denying all day - and threaten ominously to spill. 

“Talk to me.” 

She turns away from his gaze. She doesn’t want him to see her cry and give him the satisfaction of thinking that it was for him.

“Well, this is awkward.” He mutters, and she feels her blood boiling underneath her skin. 

That’s it! She snaps. 

She launches herself from where she is sitting and propels herself towards his face, slapping and kicking and doing all she can, though it proves difficult given his tall frame. She barely reaches the top of his cheeks but she keeps on hitting him regardless. 

“You!” She screams in frustration. “You hurt her! I know you did!” She claws at him. 

He attempts to block her blows, though she carries on despite him. “One of my dearest friends is de-,” she chokes back a traitorous sob, “is dead! It was either you or your fucking followers! Tell me!” 

“I didn’t do anything,” he says through clenched teeth, still putting his arms up to shield his face. 

“Liar! Turn back time, do whatever you can! Bring her back!” 

He frowns. “If anyone can turn back time, sweetheart, it’s you.” He pauses for a moment. “Remember?” He says through a grimace. 

“I can’t!” She collapses to her knees with her head turns to the grass. “I’m not powerful enough in this timeline.” She looks up at him with a blotchy, desperate face. “I can’t! I can’t save her!”

He stares at her deflated form for a moment, feeling that same awful unfamiliar tug of guilt in his chest that he had experienced previously that morning. For the first time in his life, he can claim that he is innocent. He did not kill that girl, but how can he convince her?

He cannot blame her for blaming him. He certainly has a track record of destructive behavior. 

“Neither can I,” he says, in a softer tone than usual, “but I promise you, this was not my doing.”

“Then who, Michael? Who?” She claws at the grass with her fingers in frustration. “I’ve done everything to make things right, to fix this bullshit, yet I can’t seem to win!” 

“I can’t tell you because I don’t know.” He stoops down onto his knees to mirror her level. “I have no reason to be stirring up more trouble than I am. I’m stuck with you, remember?”

She wipes her eyes, closing them for a brief moment to ground herself before opening them once again to find herself staring at his face. She offers a shaky breath. “I do not trust you.” She begins. “I will never trust you, but I believe you.” 

She sees an odd look pass over his face. Is that relief? If so it looks out of place on him.

“I am sorry. I hope you know that.” He says.

“She was good,” she cries, “and honest, and kind, and a wonderful friend. She deserved to live.” Her body no longer wills itself to descend into painful sobs, but a lone tear lets itself climb down her cheek. “If any of us deserved to live, it was her.” 

She wipes the tear away. “She deserved to get married, to have children, to make the world a better place.” 

Michael finds himself shockingly compelled to comfort her, empathy flowing through him nauseatingly strongly. He is reminded of how much he used to hate the feeling of sympathy, of pity. He feels her pain and it digs deep, like a thorn in his side. 

His body seems to move before his head can catch up with it and he comes up behind her and holds her, enveloping her shaking body. 

“What are you doing?” She asks as she stiffens slightly at his touch, though she doesn’t pull away. 

“Just be quiet,” he says, “we’re stuck here anyway.”

He loses track of time as the seconds turn to minutes and the minutes turn to an hour, yet neither of them seem able to move.

///

From a distance three figures stay shrouded in darkness, dark hoods bathing their faces and concealing their identities in the blackness. They can feel the power radiating from the garden, the dark forces to whom they had so often prayed dragging them to the spot. 

They watch the boy. They know it is him; they feel it in their bones and in their hearts. He is the one that they have been waiting for. 

Something troubles them, nevertheless. There is a tenderness visible in him, through the way that he sits and holds that girl in his arms. This will not do.

The blonde was the first attempt to contact their savior, her gruesome death surely pleasing him, they had imagined, yet they had received no word from him. The boy had made no attempt to contact them and shower them in glory for fulfilling his father’s twisted desires.

There was no doubt about it. That girl needs to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been ages! I'm so sorry! I've been so busy (and I have to admit that I've... been procrastinating). I really hope that you like this chapter and even though it's short I thought that it would be best to upload nevertheless. I've had a half-written version of this chapter sitting unopened for around a month now and it honestly felt so good finally getting it finished.   
> Don't worry, I'm not giving up on this story! I'm just notoriously bad at updating regularly. I promise that I will be updating more regularly from now onwards.


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